Cardiac disease is one of the most common causes of death in the industrial world. Many patients with cardiac disease have to be given a donor heart, which generally involves a waiting period. During the waiting period for a donor heart, a number of patients were given artificial hearts with the use of heart-lung machines but this is no longer common practice for a number of reasons, among them the fact that the intervention is risky and expensive.
To preserve the heart, more complex operations are now carried out increasingly on the beating heart, in particular to avoid the use of heart-lung machines and the associated side effects for the patient. For some years now blood pumps have been used during such operations, to assist the pumping function of the heart before, during and after the heart operation. Such blood pumps are also known as left ventricular and right ventricular Impella blood pumps. Such a blood pump can be positioned percutaneously by way of the vascular system, for example in a ventricle, with the aid of a catheter in order to provide an additional pumping function to the heart there. Impella blood pumps are so small that they can be positioned in the heart both directly by way of the aorta or vena cava as well as through the leg artery or vein. Such intracardiac Impella blood pumps are described in DE 100 40 403 A1, DE 103 36 902 B3 and DE 10 2004 049 986 A1.
A left ventricular Impella blood pump is inserted into the aorta with the aid of the catheter and advanced into the left ventricle by way of the aortic valve. The blood is conveyed out from the ventricle through a tube and exits again in the aorta at the pump.
In the case of the right ventricular Impella blood pump access is by way of the vena cava superior. A tube is then inserted through the right atrium and the ventricle by way of the pulmonary valve into the truncus pulmonalis. The blood is conveyed out from the atrium through the tube and exits again at the opening of the tube in the truncus pulmonalis.
The biventricular intracardiac pump system—Impella—replaces extracorporeal blood circulation and therefore the use of a heart-lung machine during minimally invasive coronary surgery. The system reduces the invasive nature of the intervention and provides better protection for the heart.
Today an Impella blood pump is positioned in the heart of a patient using x-ray radiation, in other words the advance of the Impella blood pump through one or more blood vessels, the insertion of the Impella blood pump into the heart and the correct positioning of the Impella blood pump in the heart are controlled by x-ray. The correct location of the Impella blood pump in the heart during its operation must also be monitored or controlled at least from time to time by means of x-ray radiation after the medical intervention.